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Importance of SLOW
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5 thoughts on “Importance of SLOW”
It has been a joy these past few days to work with a new batch of first year students. Speaking to them in the target language and laughing with them and seeing them understand… wow… I really feel like I am finding myself, my center, this year.
And James if you think about it, our work this summer in the War Room was really just a meditation, for everyone who worked, on SLOW. That was the leitmotif for everyone.
In Chicago, also, I remember asking one teacher who was going a bit fast to fit each of the seven words she was teaching into the space of one minute, with the words evenly spaced throughout. I did that just to make a point, not to suggest that we speak at the rate of seven words per minute.
The first time she only filled up like 14 seconds, and it shocked her. But I wasn’t shocked, because I wasn’t understanding her that time. Then she tried again and went up to like 25 seconds for the seven words. Still too fast. Then 38 seconds or something like that. Too fast.
Then she said the seven words in like a minute and fifteen seconds. We understood. My prayer is that the example here serve to remind all in classes right now today that the kids would appreciate your efforts to go slower when you speak to them, no matter how painful it is to you to do so.
Those poor kids. So many new faces and new things. The least we can do is give them a successful and easy and entertaining experience in our classrooms, today and every day all year long.
We use SLOW to guarantee their motivation, because we love them, and we don’t want this world to be any harder on them this year than it has to be. God bless them and God bless us.
Very good reminder about SLOW. I think maybe it should always be in capitals (those look slower to me somehow, like a STOP sign is always in capital letters).
I am norming returning students from a previous teacher, and finding the level 2’s are really, really beginning-level in many ways. I need to think of them as Chinese 1 in pace but with somewhat more vocabulary that they can recognize — not always that they can call up from memory. So this week I have been trying to norm them to class expectations and I need to let them norm me to their need (even more than the 3 and 4 levels) for SLOW.
What it be such a bad thing to teach all four levels the same level 1 lesson, Diane? I would do that. Make it easy on everyone. Bring the success. No, the class you teach to your level 1 Chinese students would NOT be below the capacities of your upper level kids. I guarantee it. On the other hand, those upper level kids would think that you are the coolest teacher ever. And you wouldn’t have to tell them that they are doing level 1 work. Because we know that there are no levels, only comprehensibility or not comprehensibility.
Because we know that there are no levels, only comprehensibility or not comprehensibility.
That is worth repeating, Ben.